Why we started Zen Educate

Dealing with an Education Recruiter is often like dealing with an unscrupulous Estate Agent. If you are like most schools, you’ve probably felt this frustration, and with good reason.

Education Recruitment is Broken

The current system is set-up around an inherent conflict of interest between agencies and the education system. Recruiters are completely driven by their commission. The more they charge schools and the less they pay teachers, the more they take home. This creates a market that fails to do right by the education system. Most worryingly, it also introduces the temptation for unsavoury business practices that are exacerbated by the lack of qualifications required to be an education recruiter or the lack of regulation required to run an agency.

It is time for a change

15 years ago it would have been unheard of to book a restaurant or hotel online, today it is rare to book either of those two by phone. Arranging cover for schools will follow this trend shortly.

The use of an online platform allows for a level of transparency and efficiency that revolutionises the system - schools will be able to see the pool of available supply teachers by proximity and skills instantly at the click of a button, instead of seeing only a limited group of teachers found via many phone calls in the morning that is inefficient and time-consuming.

Zen Educate

As experienced technology entrepreneurs, and having a passion for improving education, we started Zen Educate to lead the wave of interventions that the education system deserves. Schools spend over £1.3bn a year on agency staff. Over £300m per year of that is wasted as fees that go straight to the recruitment agencies. That’s money that could be going back to schools!

Worse yet, there are layers of hidden costs from the inefficient time tracking and payment process to the overstaffing that schools have had to rely on because of the frustration of working with agencies.

“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten” — Bill Gates

We’re on a mission to change the world of education recruitment and will work tirelessly to do so.